The SuperTuxKart team is happy to announce the first release candidate for SuperTuxKart 1.5
The SuperTuxKart team is happy to announce the first release candidate for SuperTuxKart 1.5
The SuperTuxKart team is happy to announce the first release candidate for SuperTuxKart 1.5. Several months have elapsed since the release ...
I'm mostly excited about this because an earlier blog post stated that 1.5 would be the last revision on the 1.x branch, and that 2.0 will be a major overhaul. I'd really like to see SuperTuxKart get to a state where it could at the very least stand next to the kart racers of a decade ago.
SuperTuxKart is such a strange combination of flavors.
The big commercial kart racer I played a lot was Diddy Kong Racing on the N64, and compared to DKR:
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SuperTuxKart's graphics look better. Higher resolution, higher frame rate, reminds me a lot of Roller Coaster Tycoon 3. "Oh hey this looks pretty good" for a Windows 7 era PC game that could run on an eMachine, still slightly jank here and there.
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SuperTuxKart's music isn't as good, but DKR's music was made by David Wise, so DKR sets a very high bar.
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SuperTuxKart's menus are Windows 95 "300 games on one CD!" level. Static backgrounds, janky music that's played too loud by default, amateurish icons, irritating stock sound effects, nostalgic in a way but wears out its welcome pretty quick.
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STK has a world/campaign mode where you drive around a little environment to pick what tracks/events you're going to run, and it's kind of awful. That's DKR's big gimmick, that you're on an island you can explore. There are even races that take place in the lobby space. STK's lobby space is a bunch of weirdly scattered doors. It's at that "There, it works" state that so many FOSS projects are published at.
Overall, my experience with SuperTuxKart is finally getting into an actual race and being pleasantly surprised with how good it looks and plays given how crap the window dressing is.
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Awesome! It's been awhile since I've played it. I'm excited to try the new update. Perfect timing for my new PC too.
It's cool to hear that it is still getting updates.
Awesome. I was there in 2006 when this project got off the ground. If I remember correctly, it was a fork of TuxKart, since the author could not be reached in order to take over the project (or they didn't want to hand over maintenance).
It was a part of the Linux Game Tome forums Game of the Month. I think there were really only ever two - SuperTux and SuperTuxKart. The idea behind GotM was to get devs and artists to all focus on one game to make some improvements. In reality, people got attached and never moved on the the next project. I still think it was a success, though!
My family grew up with Crash Team Racing and we still break that game out every Christmas and Thanksgiving. Might be able to get them to look at this.